"A blog is to a writer what a canvas is to an artist." ~ Colleen Redman

The Brick Factory is a mobile public art project that was created by my Asheville Potter Son Josh Copus and is currently taking place at the Old Marshall Jail in downtown Marshall NC. Check times HERE.

The idea is about building community. Visitors stamp their words and stories on a brick, created from clay dug from a farmer’s field and homemade on site. Watch HERE.

The bricks will be fired in Josh’s kilns and used in community art installations as a monument, a historic record, walls and walkways at the jail, which is being renovated by Josh and his partners.

On this particular Saturday, some of Josh’s partners were his nephews, Bryce (9) and Liam (7). Joe and I took the boys on a road trip to visit the Brick Factory, and they got right to work as if they were made to do it.

When Bryce learned that Josh needed to take down a wall, he got into the demolition part of the jail renovation job. Watch the make-over video HERE.

Liam gave tours of the old jail.

They both made signs inviting visitors to make bricks.

Liam wanted to make sure everyone knew it was free.

Of course, there was plenty of play that went on too, playing hide and seek and “lock them up” jail games.

We met lots of people and new friends and learned a lot about the history of the jail, which will be renovated into a Big House themed bar, restaurant, rooms to rent, a museum and more.

Josh’s partner Emily Patrick, who was a Citizen Times journalist and is now a flower farmer, has been blogging about the history of the jail, which was built from 1903 to 1905 and sits in the center of historic Marshall beside the railroad tracks and the French Broad River.

Everyone’s voice is welcome. Vising the Community Brick Project’s webpage HERE. Check out the Old Marshall Jail webpage and blog HERE and Emily’s Carolina Flowers on Facebook. / Our World Tuesday

2. I recently did one better than William Stafford. He encouraged his students to write a poem a day, and when they thought it would be too much work, he suggested that they “lower their standards.” Saturday night, I decided I wanted a poem to share on Sunday’s Poet’s United poetry forum, so, I surprised myself by writing one in less than an hour.

3. I’d be happy if I could write one poem a week.

4. This morning Joe was singing the Beatles song to me ‘you know my name, look up my number’ to me, to which I responded ‘number nine.’

5. Yesterday I went shopping for clothes and was at a disadvantage because I don’t like jeans with holes, tears or butterfly appliques on them, and I don’t like tops with one sleeve missing.

6. In his last interview, Tom Petty compared songwriting to fishing: “It’s kind of a lonely work because you just have to keep your pole in the water. I always had a little routine of going into whatever room I was using at the time to write in, and just staying in there until I felt like I got a bite.”

7. A friend on Facebook posted, “I like virtually all Queen songs that aren’t played at sporting events and in gyms,” to which I responded, “I hated every time they play Jeremiah was a Bullfrog at weddings.”

7. “And some of us on Facebook know more than we should about each other,” said at a weekend wedding party where I ran into lots of old friends.

11. Each day’s writing was like a journal entry, field notes from the trenches of grief’s frontline. I let myself trust my own stream of consciousness, trust that each separate story would become part of something whole, just as I hoped I would be again. – From the Introduction to The Jim and Dan Stories, the book I wrote in 2001 about losing two of my brothers a month apart that was used in a grief and loss class for counselors at Radford University.

12. Can you write a poem on a deadline? / Like your life depended on it? / In a noisy café? / Like William Stafford? / In every room in the house? / There is no instruction / No paycheck or pink slip / There is no score / and no demand for it … Read the rest of How To HERE.

13. Could poetry be the shadow of matter like the moon is a reflective muse to the sun’s glare?

2. Sesame Street is to kids what Saturday Night Live is to grownups, and they both are iconic shows that have lasted for more than 40 years.

‪3. Eating at my favorite restaurant on the chef’s day off is like seeing Graham Nash without the rest of the band.

4. The September issue of the AARP magazine pays tribute to the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love, complete with a Peter Max cover. “…Our mainstream culture took what it needed from the hippies. And what we needed is forever in the nation’s bloodstream, whether you bought into it back then or not. We dress our babies in tie-dye and feed them organic oatmeal while Sgt. Pepper’s plays in the background. So perhaps we should just say thanks for what turned out to be a groovy little bend in the long river of American history.” – Historian Douglas Brinkley

6. We put on a good show. Maybe we should take it on the road, or at least do a couple of more local readings. Chelsea Adams and I were featured poets on Sunday at the New River Community College in Dublin, a presentation of the NRCC Library. In was a coffee house setting. After our bio-introductions, we read and told background stories to an attentive crowd of about 25+. Chelsea’s husband Bill accompanied her on guitar, adding a foot tapping flair to match the rhythm of her poems. I showed a slide show of some of my photography, many from stories I’ve covered for The Floyd Press. – More from my book reading/signing with fellow Finishing Line Press poet Chelsea Adams HERE.

7. There You Are: It’s that time of year. I’m glad I had some zinnia to offer as a pit stop for the monarchs on migration. See them HERE.

8. And now this: “The brain doesn’t just decide what is and important to remember, it actually retains new memories and overwrites old ones. Retaining “big picture” memories is becoming less and less important for us humans with improvements in technology and our access to information. It’s more useful for us evolutionarily to know how to Google the spelling of a word, or how to install a shower head than it is for us to remember exactly how to do it… “ – More from “Scientists Say That Being Forgetful Is Actually A Sign You Are Unusually Intelligent” HERE.

11. On Monday night Jimmy Kimmel gave the best heartfelt response to the recent Las Vegas massacre and implored Republican lawmakers to pass some common sense control on military style weapons: “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, a number of other lawmakers who won’t do anything about this because the NRA has their balls in a money clip, also sent their thoughts and their prayers today, which is good. They should be praying. They should be praying for God to forgive them for letting the gun lobby run this country…” Listen to his entire monologue HERE.

12. Trying to put life into written words is like trying to pin the tail on the donkey while blindfolded. And sometimes we break the piñata.

13.. Caught in a web / like a Nowhere Man / hanging in a nowhere land / An inchworm / twisting in the breeze / swings in mid-air / like a daredevil trapeze … Read Hanging from a Thread in its entirety HERE.

It’s that time of year. I’m glad I had some zinnia to offer as a pit stop for the monarchs on migration. Only two stopped in my yard. And look at the damage the preying mantis has done to my pepper plant. I didn’t notice it in the garden but did when I looked at the picture.

We put on a good show. Maybe we should take it on the road, or at least do a couple of more local readings. Chelsea Adams and I were featured poets on Sunday at the New River Community College in Dublin, a presentation of the NRCC Library.

In was a coffee house setting. After our bio-introductions, we read and told background stories to an attentive crowd of about 25+. Chelsea’s husband Bill accompanied her on guitar, adding a foot tapping flair to match the rhythm of her poems. I showed a slide show of some of my photography, many from stories I’ve covered for The Floyd Press.

We alternated two sets each. I read from my book, recently published by Finishing Line Press, Packing a Suitcase for the Afterlife, …Each mark is a dream / that tells more than one truth / And believes in the existence / of the next page … And a poem about my grandmother’s brogue from my 2004 publication Muses Like Moonlight, done in part with an Irish accent …How well we hide our wounds / constrict our throats / to muffle grief / in every language …

Chelsea, a past creative writing teacher at Radford University, read from her 2012 Finishing Line Press book, At Last Light, from her 2000 Sow’s Ear Press chapbook Looking for a Landing, and from her chapbook Java Poems, which speaks poetically to her love of coffee and jazz.

One of my favorite poems that Chelsea read is not included in a book (yet) but has been published in a 2013 publication of Floyd County Moonshine, a local literary art journal, in which Chelsea was featured … I want to go gently into that good night / want my breath to be stilled / as a woman whispers the candles out / after a dinner party …

Two of the poems I read from Packing a Suitcase for the Afterlife were previously published in Floyd County Moonshine … On a lazy Sunday / made for folk singers / and people who read Carl Sagan / I’m fishing for lines / in Pandora’s Box / A pink smart phone / set on Cupid’s station … Another was previously published in Artemis Journal, another stand-out local publication.

The latest issue of Floyd County Moonshine (available HERE) includes two of my poems, my photography (including the cover shot) and a review of my book Packing a Suitcase for the Afterlife by poet and creative writing teacher at Emory and Henry College, Felicia Mitchell. Mitchell writes, “The poems, rich with imagery and introspection, resonate with an original voice grounded in a range of experiences. Intelligent and compassionate, they promise to draw in readers with their layering of dream and day, of past and present, of insight and story…” – Colleen Redman

1. The first thing I said to Joe when I came to after having anesthesia for a medical procedure was “What did Trump do while I was under?”

2. The nurse in the room overheard me and said, “It’s an applecart going downhill that just hasn’t hit the bottom yet.”

3. Mario and Lugi’s nemesis is Bowser, but I called him Browser by mistake to my nine-year-old grandson Bryce, who responded “If it’s Browser, then his nemesis is Google.”

4. “If you chose to peacefully protest that does not make you a son of a bitch.” -Jerry Brewer, Washington Post

5. Comment seen on Facebook: Wealthy people of color shouldn’t protest because they are now wealthy and because this nation pays SOOOO much attention when poor people of color protest. Sure. Uh Huh.

6. How many can say they’ve actually participated in one of those surprise birthday parties that you see in movies where everyone hides, then jumps out shouting “Happy Birthday” when the person with the birthday arrives unaware? – See how we pulled just that off for my friend Jayn’s 70th birthday HERE.

7. The word dead is in dread, but so is dear. The paradox of my life now is that I need a simple life with simple routines, but I also find the repetition of days and chores monotonous. I can’t seem to get enough solitude, but too much becomes debilitating isolation. A balancing act? Yes, one that falls if either piece isn’t recognized. – More from Dear Dread HERE.

8. I know that Smashing Pumpkins is the name of a band but it’s also a tradition in our family. And there is more than one way to collect seeds for roasting…For Bryce, his brother Liam and his hopa Joe, the pumpkin smashing ritual is a sport, complete with all the gear and with a horsing around hosing off at the end (which they know better than to include me in) … See photos HERE.

9. “Deep beneath the surface, off the coast of Alabama, lies a hidden treasure not known to man for thousands of years: an ancient underwater forest. Long concealed and preserved under a thick layer of sediment are clusters of cypress trees, which scientists believe was uncovered by Hurricane Ivan back in 2004. Scientists determined that the trees dated as far back as the ice ages, some 60,000 years ago. “These trees died very quickly and we want to see how that’s tied to sea-level rise,” said Kristine DeLong, a paleo-climatologist at Louisiana State University…” – More from NBC news’ The Unveiling of an Ancient Underwater Forest off Alabama Coast HERE.

10. Trump spends more time stirring up hornet’s nests that divide people than he does running the country. At least the NFL doesn’t have nuclear weapons to respond to his goading like North Korea does.

11. “We chose to kneel because it’s a respectful gesture. I remember thinking our posture was like a flag flown at half-mast to mark a tragedy. – Eric Reid: Why Colin Kaepernick and I Decided to Take a Knee/ New York Times

12. I want a poem meant to be / that says what it means / and isn’t afraid to wear / its heart on its sleeve– Read the rest of Not Just a Pretty Face HERE.

How many can say they’ve actually participated in one of those surprise birthday parties that you see in movies where everyone hides, then jumps out shouting “Happy Birthday” when the person with the birthday arrives unaware?

We recently pulled one of those off for our friend Jayn. Yes, we parked in an upper field away from her house. We hid behind couches and waited.

We took directions from Jayn’s daughter Amy, the master surprise party organizer, as the excitement built.

Finally, first the family dog arrived, and then Jayn. She didn’t have a clue.

After a rousing round of “Happy Birthday to you,” Jayn was showered with greetings and hugs, which she gracefully accepted, even after working all day, selling her pottery at the Roanoke Market.

The circle before our potluck feast brought back memories of decades of community celebrations, especially the Fall Equinox (which took place the day before) that Zephyr Farm (the community where Jayn lives) hosted for so many years.

Songs to honor Jayn filled the evening air.

It was a real Old Home Week Floyd party!

Complete with the tradition of stories and conversation around the fire. Just like old times.

Read an article I wrote about Jayn, A Simple Living Devotee, in a 2010 issue of Natural Awakenings HERE. / Our World Tuesday

About

From the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia I write to synthesize what I'm learning at the time, whether it be poetry, a political commentary, or a letter to my mother in Hull, Massachusetts, where I'm originally from. Whenever I don't know exactly what it is I'm doing and it borders on wasting my time, I call it research. 'Dear Abby, How can I get rid of freckles?' was my first published piece at the age of 11.